Chapter 11: Not Like This

I stood up off the stool.

Jace's hand left my waist without a word.

I walked into the open space where Elliot had knelt, and I faced the room with my back straight.

"I paid the cardiac center on Wednesday," I said. "Sixty-four hundred dollars. It was mine, from my own account."

Margot's eyebrows went up.

"Because your lawyer's letter said the family's money was in consideration of a marriage," I said.

"I had never been told that. I read it on a doormat."

"A touching story," Margot said.

"I don't take what I haven't agreed to. So I started paying it back."

A low murmur went through the guests.

"I will pay back every cent," I said. "Four hundred twelve thousand, six hundred.

"It will take me a long time, and you will get every dollar.

"Then nobody can say anyone bought me."

My voice was steady, and I was proud of that.

I turned to Elliot.

"Library," I said. "Now. Your mother can bring her safe key."

He followed me out through the double doors.

Behind us the quartet struck up again, too fast, and two hundred conversations broke out at once.

The Rainer library was at the end of a long hall, dim and paneled, with a fire laid and not lit.

I shut the door behind us.

Elliot stood in the middle of the carpet in his tuxedo, with his hands hanging.

"Tell me from the beginning," I said. "What did she say to you the night of the wedding?"

"We'd had the dinner." His voice was low and hollow.

"I went to find you at the end of the evening, and she stopped me in the hall."

"Go on."

"She said she had something to tell me before I made a mistake.

"She said you were a good girl in a bad spot, and you'd said yes because of your father."

He swallowed.

"She said you understood what it meant. You'd be there, and you'd be gracious, and I was never to ask for more."

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